New York City murder rate heading toward historic low, stats show

NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill is pictured Friday, July 28, 2017 at One Police Plaza in Manhattan. (Marcus Santos)

Murders in New York City are on track to hit another historic low, according to NYPD statistics for the first eight months of the year.

The city has seen 179 homicides this year as of Sept. 1 — a 22.5% drop compared to the 231 homicides in the same period in 2016, the Daily News has learned.

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If the trend continues through New Year's Eve, the city could be on track to shatter the record low of 333 set in 2014.

Last month, Chief of Crime Control Strategies Dermot Shea estimated that the year-end total would be "somewhere around 300."

Based on the current murder rate, the Daily News estimates the total could be even lower — about 268.

The number of homicides in 1990 was 10 times higher, topping out at a grim 2,262.

By contrast, through Aug. 27, Chicago — a city one quarter the size of New York with 2 million people — had reported 452 murders and 1,930 shootings.

Police Commissioner James O'Neill is preparing to formally release the crime stats at a briefing Tuesday.

There's more good news. The number of shootings is down 22.86% as of Friday, dipping to 523 this year, compared to 678 in the same span last year.

If that trend holds, it will set yet another record, coming in at about 800 shootings by the time the ball drops in Times Square.

The city ended 2016 with a record-low 998 shootings.

Overall, major crimes are down 6.3% — 63,157 in 2017 compared to 67,435 in the same period in 2016.

"Through seven months, we are on pace to finish the year potentially under 100,000 index crimes and that would be the first time that that's occurred," Shea said Aug. 3.

Shea said through the end of July, there had been just over 54,000 major crimes. There were just over 102,000 crimes in all of 2016.

Police brass have touted the department's anti-gang efforts and credit their emphasis on targeting street crews and repeat offenders for the sharp drop in shootings.

The NYPD also point to its new precision policing approach as a more effective alternative to stopping and frisking people in minority neighborhoods — a widely criticized tactic used by cops under former Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

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Still, John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor Eugene O'Donnell, a former NYPD cop, cautioned against giving the department too much credit for the drop in murders.

"The fact that it's happening is way more important than why," he said. "The why is debatable. The reality is the city is super safe at this point, and it's spectacular news ... This proves that there's always a new frontier in lowering these numbers."

O'Donnell suggested that the city's economic growth may be driving the drop in crime.

"I think that it's just a cascading series of positive events that have gone lightning fast," he said. "The city is very vibrant and very alive... This is just why they shouldn't get too ahead of themselves."